And They All Fall Down
by DresdenGal
Summary: Post Reichenbach Fall. When Sherlock fell, they all fell. One way or another. They fell like dominos set off from the center of a circle. They fell like a house of cards whose tenuous hold on structure had been compromised by a small gust of air.


**And They All Fall Down**

When Sherlock fell, they all fell. One way or another.

They fell like dominos set off from the center of a circle.

They fell like a house of cards whose tenuous hold on structure had been compromised by a small gust of air.

They fell both quickly and slowly. Some even fell multiple times, always grasping the ledge above them for as long as possible before succumbing to the inevitable.

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John fell instantly. Forced to watch, forced to bear witness and be the unwitting cover-story that Sherlock so desperately needed. John's heart fell with the detective, breaking into a jigsaw puzzle of thousands of pieces that would be nearly impossible to put back together once Sherlock's falling body disappeared from view. When John came to himself again he was crouched against St. Bart's cold stone wall with his head between his legs trying to breathe. He felt a hand on his shoulder, a pin-point of solid contact, and somehow knew without looking that the hand belonged to Lestrade. Part of him wanted to hate Lestrade for his part in the arrest, but a larger part understood that Lestrade cared for Sherlock, that he and the genius shared a peculiar history that John was unsure if even Mycroft knew all of. So John let the hand stay there, idly wondering if Lestrade meant to be an anchor for him for Lestrade himself.

Breathing mostly under control for the moment, John involuntarily looked up to the roof and tracked Sherlock's fall, unable to take his eyes away from the blood-stained pavement at the end of the journey. Oddly, it was poetry recited in the eerily smooth voice of a former college girlfriend that floated through his mind, dropping into the moment of stillness.

_I fell toward Hiroshima. Faster. And Faster. Till the earth, till the morning slipped away beneath me. Some say when I hit there was an explosion, a searing wind that swept the dead before it. But there was only silence. Only the soothing baby blue morning, rocking me its cradle of cumulous cloud (1)._

John understood it differently now. In college it had been simply a poem, a slightly disturbing look at man's ideas and creations being bent to destruction, of the guilt that settled on the men with those ideas. Now…now he knew it meant he would never stop falling, never stop seeing Sherlock fall because if he truly hit bottom there would be an explosion-the undeniable truth that Sherlock was really gone—and it would sweep all of the excitement and danger of sharing life with Sherlock Holmes away with it. He would be left with only silence, with no answer for the question "why". So he would hold onto all of Sherlock, not matter how unhealthy, because some images can't be erased. And because some falls have no end.

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Detective Inspector Lestrade was the first call Molly made, wanting to get him to St. Bart's as fast as possible to take care of John and because Molly felt she should be the one to tell him. Outside his office, Lestrade could hear Donovan and Anderson talking/bickering/arguing with phrases like "I told ya" and "it was only a matter of time" and "what dupes we've been" and whatever else could be said as they preached to the choir. Inside his office, Lestrade held the disconnected phone in one hand and reached out to grasp his desk, the door handle, the file cabinet, anything to keep him upright in his chair and to stop the sudden pressure around his ears and tugging at his heart. He could and couldn't believe it. He was and wasn't pissed about it. Because despite it all, he still believed in Sherlock, even with the doubts. Doubting and double-checking was simply second nature as a detective. But _this_….had he really pulled Sherlock from the brink of cocaine addiction turned over-dose on more than one occasion for him to succumb to _the game_?

When the dial tone of the phone registered, Lestrade came to himself in a rush and found himself pulling on his coat and heading towards St. Bart's without the memory of making the decision to move. As he left the offices of The New Scotland Yard he felt the gaze of most of the other officers. He ignored them as steadily as he ignored Donovan and Anderson's questions. Before the phone call Lestrade had been skimming an internal memo that would start the inquiry into Lestrade's use of a civilian consult and would eventually re-open most or all of the cases that had Sherlock's name attached to it. He wondered if the cold cases from before Sherlock was born or old enough to vote or buy himself a beer would be re-opened, too, as a show of thoroughness of the investigation. Either way it was years of his team's work under threat.

It wasn't until he had hailed a cab, knowing full-well he was in no condition to drive, that he let himself think about the consequences of such an inquiry on his employment. If we has lucky, very lucky, he might retain his Detective Inspector status with the understanding that he would never receive a promotion, that even a raise would be questionable, and that he would be shunted with the cases that others didn't want. He almost hoped that Anderson and Donovan would request transfers away from him so he could squash their hopes and let them stew in their vitriol because they were a team—Lestrade, Donovan, Anderson, Sherlock, and John—and they would all answer to the consequences as a together. Never let it be said that Lestrade couldn't be vindictive _and_ practical.

At St. Bart's Lestrade nearly fell out of the cab when he saw the crowd and the uncomfortably recognizable puddle and striations of blood spatter of the pavement. No phone call could have fully prepared him. He closed his eyes, breathed and then sought out John. When he found John sitting by the building's wall, head between his legs, gently rocking, Lestrade nearly collapsed against a bit of wall next to him and let himself slide down to the pavement. He simply stared at the blood-stained pavement for a moment before unconsciously shifting his gaze upward towards the roof and wondered why and how Sherlock could do this to them. He heard a stifled sob and instinctively put his hand on John's should for comfort before realizing the sob was his own. And Lestrade knew that he would fall twice: once in his heart for the loss of a good man and once in his career, both times for Sherlock.

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Mrs. Hudson, always more intuitive and a larger part of Sherlock and John's lives than most knew, was the only person to start falling before Sherlock stepped off the ledge. One look at John's horrified face as he burst into 221 and then lurched back out told her that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. So she waited with unease coiling and uncoiling in her stomach. She sat with her cup of tea, her hands wrapping and re-wrapping themselves around it as she sat and stared and waited for the maintenance man to finish. The tea went cold without notice; Mrs. Hudson never actually took a sip.

She barely registered the closing of the man's toolbox and acted on auto-pilot as she paid him and watched him leave, ladder and all. Mrs. Hudson, surrogate mother and landlady (not their housekeeper) sat and fiddled with her teacup and waited for her boys to return to her with a laugh or for her world to fall apart. There would be no middle ground today. She found herself contemplating Shrodinger's Cat from a long ago conversation. Alive and Dead. Sherlock had once commented with a small smirk that her late husband was a full embodiment of Shrodinger's Cat as he sat on death row waiting for his day of execution. Today, as long as no one came to confirm or deny her worries as her sanity slowly fell apart, her boys were both Laughing and Crying, Getting it All Sorted or Losing the Game

The police car that stopped on the street was nothing new, and at least this time there was only one car, but there was no black cab following it to the curb. Mrs. Hudson watched Lestrade get out of the car and open the passenger door slowly as if it took an enormous effort to move and help the backseat occupant onto unsteady feet. Again, one look at John gazing up at the front door with so much anguish and she simply knew. Her heart plummeted. Only one of her boys was coming home.

When it became clear that John could not or would not move towards the door of his own volition, even with Lestrade behind him, Mrs. Hudson closed her eyes, took a breath, and opened the door for them. Lestrade took the first step up and dipped his head in greeting. Before he could get more than a "Mrs. Hudson…" out John suddenly moved forwards and embraced her fully and Mrs. Hudson closed her eyes against the truth. She heard it anyway as John said softy, "I…Mrs. Hudson…Sherlock…He…", before starting to cry and Mrs. Hudson cooed a soft soothing sound as she pulled him closer to her and into 221's open door and into her flat. She settled John onto her sofa before calling "Greg" softly to be sure he entered as well.

Once a fresh pot of tea had been made and cups passed around, Mrs. Hudson asked Lestrade for the details. John would speak no more that night.

"But why would he…?"

"We don't know."

Mrs. Hudson looked into the haunted eyes of the Detective Inspector and reached over and squeezed his hand before getting up and putting away the tea things to give Lestrade the chance to make an apology and leave.

Being Mrs. Hudson their Landlady (and their Housekeeper) she kept it together long enough to see Lestrade out before letting her own tears fall.

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Molly didn't fall with Sherlock, at least not _that_ day. Because she knew. Because she helped. Because she was trusted. And because she could act, though no one would have expected it. It was an unexpected gift to count and unexpectedly intimate to have Sherlock speak to her with such a high level of urgency that gave way to desperation the longer he talked through his plan out loud. It was as if letting the words loose in the lab made Sherlock realize not only how far-fetched this plan was (even if it was methodically thought and planned out) but also what the real consequences of his action would be. Molly faltered a few times in recitation of the plan and read the _"Please. This _has_ to work"_ under Sherlock's extra caustic remarks and hasty apologies. She almost breathed a sigh of relief when he nodded and said "Good." Taking it as a dismissal, Molly turned away to start pulling resources together. She was shocked and touched when Sherlock pulled her back and kissed her on the temple and whispered "Thank you" before ghosting out of her office. She had to fight the lump in her throat before she started making calls.

No, Molly didn't fall with Sherlock. She fell with the sound of distress in Lestrade's voice on other end of the phone. She fell with the look of utter loss on John's face outside the morgue. She fell with each of Mycroft's proddings, with the knowledge of what she'd done and would do again for Sherlock simply because he trusted her, because she counted. It wasn't until a year and half on when Sherlock showed up on her doorstep in need of a place to recover and an errand-runner that Molly realized that somewhere along the line she had fallen out of love or infatuation with Sherlock the genius and had instead found that she considered herself a friend to Sherlock the man.

She fell a little at a time: at the funeral where she kept to the back because it hurt to be the only one to know Sherlock lived; when realized she hadn't seen John in months and then in over a year; every time she left her lab to get coffee and found herself making two cups and wondered if John did the same with the tea; whenever she remembered the way Sherlock looked when he walked out of her morgue and towards his mission. He had never seemed so vulnerable and had been unwilling and unable to promise that he would return someday, that she could eventually stop falling apart.

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Anderson would never acknowledge his changing perspective as a fall. He could never admit to himself that Sherlock's methods of deduction, Sherlock's disdain for his work, and Sherlock's fall had affected him so. But fall he did, even if he himself labeled it as "Waking Up". In some ways, Anderson fell the hardest because he fell _away_ from something instead of _towards_ it and didn't understand what was happening at the time. No one expects to fall off their high horse, especially not when the Chief was lauding his praise only weeks before.

Sherlock's act of resisting arrest and dragging Watson along after trying to talk with Lestrade had seemed a desperate ploy that night. Now, weeks and months after Sherlock's long walk off a short pier Anderson understood that though the desperation was real, it hadn't been a ploy. Sherlock truly had figured out how to find the children from a boot –print, had been uncharacteristically (to him) shocked by the girl's reaction to him, and had simply been trying to get them all to see reason and had known all along they wouldn't listen. Sherlock had been Guilty until Proven Innocent as soon as Sally had spoken up and he himself had jumped to agree with her.

At first Anderson had chafed at the bonds Lestrade gave him, not letting him transfer teams until the inquiry was finished, and had loudly proclaimed his beliefs that Sherlock was a fraud and that Lestrade needed to see reason. Months into the investigation against Lestrade and the re-opening of all the cases Sherlock had touched, the committee had grudgingly found themselves agreeing with Sherlock's deductions on almost all of the cases they had studied. Even the few they overturned seemed more of a token gesture to those who would never see past a well-timed news article.

Anderson found himself trying to employ Sherlock's methods as he studied new bodies and new crime scenes. Sometimes he swore he could hear Sherlock calling him an idiot and smiled. Though still a little bitter, he could see how his hatred and, yes, jealousy had colored the way he looked at the evidence and changed the way he heard Donovan's opinions. He began to wonder why he had ever fallen for Donovan's lies or, more importantly, for her.

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Donovan would never say it, but the moment Molly exited the morgue with eyes and words only for John and John could only shake his head and whisper something that sounded like "no. god no.", she had doubted herself for a moment before finding her composure and channeling those doubts into pity for John. John who was grieving over that Freak more than he deserved. John who had been duped more than any of them, despite her warnings. Donovan even managed to find some pity for her boss who was sitting in the hospital waiting chair next to John and looking almost as lost as him. It wasn't until almost twenty minutes later that Lestrade murmured something about home and John stood up as if he'd been poked with a cry of "Oh my god. Mrs. Hudson!" before collapsing against the wall to steady himself that Donovan felt any remorse. Mrs. Hudson's fussing had always reminded her of her Gran.

When Lestrade took John's elbow to guide him from the hospital he walked past Donovan as if she wasn't there, as if he hadn't noticed that she had followed him from the office. She had an awful suspicion that she was just as dead as Sherlock to Lestrade, maybe even more so. And that hurt. More than anything she had simply been trying to earn and keep Lestrade's respect. The denial for transfer two weeks later took her by surprise before she realized it was a form of punishment.

She found herself stuck on the side-lines as all of the cases Sherlock touched were re-opened, the notes pored over, and interviews redone. As each one was re-closed, most with the same ruling as the original, Donovan was forced to swallow a little pride and admit she might have been wrong. She also watched her boss retreat inwardly until all that was left was a professional relationship of the most clinical kind. Within Scotland Yard Donovan found herself almost alone by the end of the first year. Other officers assumed that it was other DI's who had nixed her and Anderson's transfers and even Anderson pulled away from her until she was the only one left in the office who spoke of Sherlock with a true tone of contempt.

It was almost a year after Sherlock's fall that the "I Believe in Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty is Real" campaign took off. A year later proof that Richard Brook was the fake and that Moriarty was real was leaked from a seemingly minor government source. This proof corresponded with the downfall of a certain journalist. And after feeling like a leper at work for nearly a year, Donovan found she was strangely relieved that the ordeal seemed to be over. Sherlock had been exonerated and she hoped the world could now go back to normal, that Lestrade and Anderson might finally start to trust her again. They had actually smiled at the news and gone to meet John for a drink. Instead, she found a completed transfer request sheet with a good (if clinical) recommendation from Lestrade attached to it on her desk. Sally had never fallen into her chair so fast. Just as she thought the world might make sense again, two sheets of paper had tipped her over the edge and in her mind she was falling.

All of her life Donovan had spent all of her energy trying to prove herself to everyone: to the boys at Scotland Yard, to her father, to her step-mother that looked right through her, to Lestrade, and even to Sherlock Holmes. She had thought that winning against Sherlock Holmes would prove beyond a doubt that the Yard didn't need Sherlock, that he was just as dangerous as she needed to believe him to be. After her own fall, she realized she'd been so concerned with what everyone else thought that she'd never actually proven her own worth to herself and wondered if she ever would.

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Mycroft fell slowly, in a mostly controlled manner. The British Government could do little else. Economic crises, foreign elections, espionage, bills, budgets and the world of politics never stopped moving forward, and the puppeteer knew he could not relinquish his hold on the strings without forfeiting them for good. And as much as that option sometimes appealed on the darker days (of which there were many in the beginning), it just wasn't in his nature to act on those thoughts. So Mycroft only let himself fall in increments between meetings, while he stirred his small ration of sugar into his tea, during his nightly glass of brandy, while prodding Molly to figure out how much she knew (because wasn't it just like Sherlock to be as vague as possible about the players in a game plan that had to work perfectly in-sync with each other to achieve their goal?), and when checking up on Doctor John Watson.

Said Doctor John Watson was responsible for the "mostly" part of the controlled fall. The Doctor's ambush at the Diogenes Club had rattled Mycroft more than he wanted to admit. In Lestrade he had found an ally to help care for and keep his little brother occupied. In John Watson he had found something else entirely: a man willing and able to accept and love Sherlock and care for him in all of the ways that being best of friends meant, in all of the ways that Mycroft couldn't. And it hurt. In subsequent visits to the flat while watching John stare silently at the wall, Mycroft let himself wonder if he would grieve as deeply as John if Sherlock had kept him in the dark, too. He wanted to believe he would, if only on the inside between meetings, while stirring his tea, drinking his nightly glass of brandy and staring out the window at the stars that Sherlock had no use for.

More than once Mycroft found himself on the verge of telling John the truth of it all. That Sherlock was still alive. That there was a grand plan. That Mycroft's personal fall was not grief, but constant worry for Sherlock's secret life of danger he himself fueled with information of Moriarty's web.

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For the people of London the fall started with a message spray painted in yellow: I Believe in Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty is Real. The simple message took on a life of its own until it seemed the city walls themselves were demanding people take a second look into the "fraudulent" detective. When Sherlock finally returned, it ended with the public falling in love all over again with its detective in the funny hat and his faithful blogger.

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As Sherlock stood on the edge of roof, failing to keep emotion out of his voice as he watched his closest friend stare up at him with hand reaching towards him, he knew. He knew he had fallen a long time ago, even if he only now saw the extent of it. Sherlock had recognized he needed John long ago, before the Hound, but somehow John had become indispensable, and not in the clinical I-need-an-assistant sense, but in a help-me-I-need-you-just-you sense.

John had subtly changed him. He had fallen for sentiment. He had friends. He had John, yes, but also Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, and Molly. He had reasons to live, but a stronger reason to Fall. He knew his calculations had a wider margin of error than he would have liked and wondered if he could have figured a complete way of this scenario if he had just had more time to plan. He knew that falling and forcing John to bear witness wasn't ideal, was actually more than just "a bit not good".

Sherlock didn't want to fall. He had desperately wanted his first ploy to get Moriarty to call of the assassins to work. But it hadn't. And now he was standing on the edge of the roof trying to memorize all of the details of John's voice as they spoke on the phone, arms outstretched to each other. If he didn't Fall, they all would. And he would be lost without his Blogger, his Housekeeper, his Inspector, his Trusted Accomplice, even his Brother. So he took a breath, said good bye, threw his phone to the side, and closed his eyes as he let himself Fall.

(1). Selection from the poem "The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer" by Ai.


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